


bonny sailor bold

by guiltylights



Category: One Piece
Genre: Admiral Sakazuki, Gen, Happy Belated Birthday Ace, Set During The Time-skip, a fic that explores how Garp deals with grief and guilt, consider this a belated birthday gift to Ace, i will always love you, mentions of the Battle at Marineford, the Luffy and Garp relationship exploration is only like 2 sentences long
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-02
Updated: 2019-01-02
Packaged: 2019-10-02 23:04:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,594
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17272835
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/guiltylights/pseuds/guiltylights
Summary: Garp wanted to get out. He wanted to punch something, or someone, maybe, kill someone for what had been done to his family, his grandson, both of them— he had only been a boy,dammit, just aboy— Garp took a breath, and counted the dust motes instead.When Garp finally answered, his voice was deliberately measured but raspy with emotion. ’Don’t ask me questions you already know the answer to, Akainu.’Grief was a tricky thing.





	bonny sailor bold

**Author's Note:**

> Imma be real I don’t remember fully the details of what the public KNOWS of the Battle at Marineford so if there’s any inconsistencies/contradictions to canon let me know yeah? 
> 
> This is like, the fourth fic I’ve started working on since my holidays started and it’s the only one I’ve finished. I was working on a Zoro and Sanji one that explored their relationship to Luffy as their captain, but then I got stuck on characterisation and jumped to a fic for another fandom, but then I got stuck with plot progression so I jumped to ANOTHER fic for ANOTHER fandom, but THEN I just got uninspired by the writing for it, and then while cleaning up my folders I found this little bit and decided to polish it up and send it out to the world.

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The news that Fire Fist Ace — second division commander of the Whitebeard pirates and feared user of the flaming devil fruit — had been killed in the Battle of Marineford spread rapidly throughout the world. He and his captain, the notorious Whitebeard, had died one after another, eradicated for the threat they had posed to the world as notorious pirates terrorising the high seas. _The worst of the worst,_ the World Economic Journal cried world-wide, _Whitebeard and Fire-Fist Ace had been the worst of the worst pirates_ — stealing, destruction, murder, they had done it all, and so their deaths could mean nothing but peace and prosperity to every country, nothing but safety and security. 

Around the world, civilians celebrated the great achievements of the World Government; they praised the might of the Marines and danced on the streets in happiness and relief, and went home to sleep in their beds reassured by the knowledge that they were safer now than they had ever been, secure in their awed knowledge of the might of the government and the Marines. If certain islands and cities that used to bear a distinctive pirate emblem suddenly went up in flames, well, they were certainly nothing to be concerned about. It was unrealistic to expect the World Economic Journal to report on _every_ kingdom’s exact happenings, after all, and surely these were completely separate incidents to the news of the downfall of the Whitebeard pirates. And so these islands went unnoticed, save for the Marines who found the pillaging of these territories by pirates crawling out of the woodwork in the wake of Whitebeard’s death to be the perfect opportunity to round up rogues on their wanted list; small-town or no, one more criminal behind bars meant one less criminal on the streets, and that would always be a good thing as far as the Marines were concerned. That, along with with cleaning up the mess that was Marineford, as well as regular drills and training and patrols, kept the Marines very busy.  

The great Marine ship sailing into the half-crushed Marineford bay was no exception. Garp had departed weeks ago, towards a small island on the Grand Line that had talk of pirates showing up there in a quest about the One Piece, with the plan to sail back in a week’s time, but the crew there had turned out so much stronger than reports had stated that Garp had been stuck there for twice longer than he had anticipated. Garp did not think of himself, by any standard, as prone to crankiness — but the past two weeks had seen him running to all places to chase and capture hardened criminals without break or rest, and even a veteran like him had a limit somewhere. To anybody and everybody that would listen, Garp had been attributing, loudly, his foul mood and lethargy to the amount of work he had been made to do recently, but he wasn’t fooling anyone, really; not even himself. By now everyone knew of Fire-Fist Ace and his relations, as brother to the infamous Straw Hat Luffy and son of the late Pirate King — and now, as adoptive grandson to the feared Marine vice-admiral Monkey D. Garp. As he stepped off the ship, Garp was severely unimpressed by the way some of the younger Marines patrolling the bay flinched and scurried past him like he was a ticking time-bomb, but then again he couldn’t say he really blamed them. Grief was a tricky thing, even when he only allowed himself to think of it in his most private moments. 

Garp passed under the ruined stone archway that used to be the entrance to the greatest Marine stronghold in the world, and paused to take a look at the building of Marineford. The great white stone walls stood half-collapsed into rubble under the bright noon sunlight, the roof caved into itself, with a crack cutting itself jagged into the walls ugly like an aftershock. With most of efforts still turned towards cleanup and damage assessment, the beginning of scaffolding and reconstruction had barely begun peeking its way out of the ruin, and the holes torn into the body of the building from the war gaped dark and open and weeping. Marine soldiers swarmed the edges and crawled along the insides of the building like ants, their starched white uniforms dots against the bright blue sky that Garp, while squinting against the white glare of sunlight, could barely stand to look at. 

Garp took only another moment to appraise the scene in front of him, before striding forward to get inside the building. The shadow of the arch above him crossed over his heart; left the rest of him in shadowless light. 

There was only one part of Marineford left functioning after the Battle. Even then, parts of the roof had caved in from the collapse of structures above it, letting in patches of sunlight that spotted the debris-covered hallways with large pools of light. Reconstruction here wouldn’t begin for a long while yet — not that Garp particularly cared. A building was a building. It can be rebuilt. 

As Garp strode towards the wide double doors at the end of the hall, he clenched his hands into fists and willed himself to stop gritting his teeth. This would go all the better if he didn’t make it difficult; if he would just keep his mouth shut and do his duty. Despite telling himself that, Garp’s fist still shook as he raised it to knock on the door. 

‘Come in.'

Garp pushed the door open, and did not look Admiral Akainu in the eye. 

‘I’m here to drop off the reports about the recent surge of pirate activities at the town I was just in.’ Garp strode forward, and unceremoniously dropped the pile of papers he had been carrying under his underarm onto Akainu’s dark walnut desk, right in front of where Akainu had been working on a pile of forms. ‘Most of the pirates there I’ve beaten into submission — but the town’s in the middle of many major sailing routes on the Grand Line. As vice-admiral I’d suggest a Marine fort being set up in that country as a semi-permanent base, to give aid to the island’s folks.’  

Akainu glanced up, and gave the reports a brief once-over. ‘Noted. I’ll look over it later.’ 

Garp nodded curtly, not trusting himself to say anything more than what he’d rehearsed in his head prior. Hearing no other instructions, Garp took a quick breath, and turned to leave. 

He’d made it halfway to the door when Akainu asked, ’why hasn’t this town been under trouble before?”’

Garp stopped. The space between him and Akainu rang loud as an echo. If Garp concentrated, he could see the dust motes floating in the air within the streams of sunlight coming in through the window; despite it being high noon and despite the generous amounts of light bouncing and rebounding off the severe white walls, the room was pressed with a curious sense of heavy darkness that felt to Garp thick like choking. Garp wanted to get out. He wanted to punch something, or someone, maybe, kill someone for what had been done to his family, his grandson, both of them— he had only been a boy, _dammit,_ just a _boy_ — Garp took a breath, and counted the dust motes instead. 

When Garp finally answered, his voice was deliberately measured but raspy with emotion. ’Don’t ask me questions you already know the answer to, Akainu.’

Certain cities, which had been untouchables for decades before, going up in flames as a black flag with a distinctive pirate emblem suddenly became nothing. Towns unprotected. Other pirates, without a looming superpowered threat to act as deterrent, now doing whatever they pleased and pillaging islands now left vulnerable. Whitebeard may had been a pirate, but he had protected his own. 

Behind him, Garp could feel Akainu’s eyes boring into his back, calculating, assessing. Garp knew there was no sympathy, no understanding, there — neither he nor Akainu had ever pretended there was. If there had ever been anything even close to camaraderie between them, as fellow Marines, before, there was nothing left now, their shared belonging to an institution a hollow thing that Garp, in his worst moments, cannot even bring himself to believe in. 

Akainu’s voice was brisk. ‘Do you hate what I did, Monkey D. Garp?’

Garp thought it was very much to his credit that he did not immediately turn around to sock Akainu straight in his face right there. Instead, all Garp did was adjust his coat, his fingers trembling as it smoothed down the fabric. The words ‘Absolute Justice’, stamped across its back in frank black lettering, was stark in its message and heavy in its significance. Garp’s feet felt as though they were rooted to the floor. 

‘As vice-admiral, I believe you made the right choice, sir.’ Garp’s voice was monotonous. Nevermind the absurdity of him calling a man more than decades his junior _sir,_ admiral superior or no. ‘Whitebeard had been a large terrorising power on the seas for years, and he needed to be reigned in and stopped.’ 

Garp paused. His hands curled into fists at his sides. ‘But—‘

‘But?’ Akainu asked, placid. 

And here Garp whirled around to stalk forward, his eyes burning furiously at Akainu sitting, immovable, in front of his desk, watching Garp the way one might do a wild but caged animal. ‘But I will never, ever—‘ 

The light from the windows cast a latticework of shadows on the floor; Garp forcibly stopped himself just behind it, his entire frame shaking and casting a shadow over Akainu as palpable as his raging sorrow. 

‘Never, ever—‘ he repeats, ‘forgive you for what you did to Ace, Akainu.’ 

And grief can be a tricky thing, Garp had thought to himself, in the secrecy and solitude of nights when the air hung still and low and the waxing moon had spilled large strips of silver light into his study, where he chose to spend his countless sleepless hours, in the wake of the war. Grief was a tricky thing, and he only allowed himself to think of it at his most private and vulnerable moments, yet Garp knew that it probably still spilled from his furiously-held together edges no matter how hard he tried to push it down. He was a Marine. He had given his whole life to upholding justice and keeping the common people safe, because that had always been what he believed in— But as a parent— As a grandfather— Still he—

‘Ace was the son of the previous Pirate King. He had to be eradicated.’

‘That wasn’t the real reason you killed him, and you know it.’ Bloodline was a weak excuse at best — stupid in its triviality yet simultaneously heartbreaking in its weight, but Garp always knew. Garp always knew. 

‘You’re right.’ Akainu’s tone was flat, unrepentant. ‘Fire-Fist Ace was a threat to the peace of the world. His death was necessary.’

Garp bit on his tongue so hard he drew blood. He turned, a whirl of white cloth and barely held-together grief and rage, and stalked back towards the doors. His back had never felt heavier. Still he didn’t shrug it off. Garp wondered if that was any form of consolation at all.

‘You have always been weak, Garp.’ Akainu’s voice, following after Garp through the door, was matter-of-fact. 

Garp did not turn back. ‘And you will always be too stupid to understand, Akainu.’ He replied. 

There was a clatter of wood as Akainu rose from his seat at the blatant show of disrespect, but Garp shut the door behind him, and did not stop to listen. 

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The moon that night, silhouetted by half-hearted thin wisps of clouds, was low and wan in the sky, its light falling dimly onto the wooden planks of the Japanese veranda and the stone-paved walkways of Garp’s inner house courtyard. Garp pulled the sliding doors open with a quiet sound; sat himself down cross-legged onto the walkway of the Japanese veranda with a heavy _thud,_ and set out one sake bottle with two cups in front of him. His shoulders were bare and empty. His shadow stretched itself long and melancholy despite his resolution not to be. 

The sound of sake being poured into the cups sloshed flush and quiet under the watchful gaze of the moon. Garp looked at the second cup in front of him for a long moment, before setting it aside. He picked the other one up, held it up briefly. 

‘I’m sorry,’ he said, to the air, to himself, to somebody, to nobody at all. Garp wasn’t even sure what he was apologising for; in the end, perhaps the worst thing was that Garp wasn’t sure if he could’ve done things differently, or if he _would’ve_ done things differently. Wasn’t sure at all. 

Garp looked up at the sky. Later in the future, should he be forced to choose again, family or his duty, Garp wondered what he would do. A choice had to be made, sooner rather than later, he knew. Because this time round, he had not chosen — or chose too late, Garp wasn’t sure yet — and look at where his indecision had gotten him. A price in heartbreak and love and regret. A price Garp knew he would be paying for the rest of his life, for every day he awoke while Ace didn’t. 

Closing his eyes, images of Ace flashed themselves one after another in front of Garp’s mind’s eye, searing hot as a brand — from a burbling wide-eyed baby to a surly raging child angry at the world, through his adolescence and then to the brazenly confident young adult he grew up and briefly was, Garp saw Ace in his mind, over and over again. The man with the fiercest sort of love for his little brother and his family, who still even at moments looked so much like a small boy in the way he couldn’t believe anyone could love him as much as he deserved to be loved. 

The memories, rising unbidden in his mind, one after another, burst a laugh out of him that was jagged in its grief; its splintering up his throat sounding too much like heaving sobs, still Garp laughed, head tossed back to the moon, until the sound emptied itself out of him and Garp had nothing else left to give. He loved and mourned so much he think he might choke on it. 

(Garp wondered if Luffy was forgiving. Wondered if he could ever speak to his only other remaining grandson still alive the same way ever again, if he could ever look him in the eyes and face him bravely and with no shame. This too, was part of the price he would have to pay.)   

Garp brought the cup in his hand to his lips, and drained it in one swallow. Heaving to his feet, Garp picked up the other cup, brimming to the lip with clear liquid, and poured it out to the dirt ground of the courtyard below. The alcohol splashed onto the ground silver as dew, and sank silent into the earth. Wordless as the dead.  

Raising the sake cup, Garp toasted to an empty moon. 

‘I’m sorry,’ he said, again, and knew he would be saying it many more times to come. ‘I love you.’ 

Garp sat back down, settled himself in for another sleepless night, and did not allow himself to cry. 

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**Author's Note:**

> Well I love breaking my own damn heart so I guess this is what this fic IS :-) Happy Belated Birthday to the only man who matters in my life — I would sell my soul in a heartbeat to bring Ace back alive, he deserved so much. He deserved so much to learn truly that he was loved, while he was alive. HE DESERVED TO LEARN HE WAS LOVED WHILE HE WAS ALIVE. 
> 
> This had initially been part of a fic I started that was a reaction series to after I’d just watched Ace die, and included Luffy and some key Straw-Hats. But then I watched the canon portrayed reactions of Luffy and Garp in the anime and that touched on everything I ever wanted to touch on in a fic like this, so I lost inspiration for this one. Still though, Garp’s and Akainu’s relationship post-Akainu’s-actions I thought would be interesting to explore, alongside with Garp’s probably-complex approach to grief and reflection, and so after months I picked this up and finished it anyway. 
> 
> Please leave comments or kudos if you liked this! Comments especially make my day :) I also have a [tumblr](http://guilty-lights.tumblr.com/) (lol even in the wake of the Disaster Porn Purge of 2018), if you wanna come say hi!


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